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Guest Editorial
I Got My Foot In The Door
In all senses of the word, it was a normal
night in my life. Fighting with my brother,
avoiding homework and being hassled by
my father. It was normal except for one
small detail - it was Tuesday. You may
wonder what Tuesday has to do with
anything, but that was the night I was finally
going to admit and accept the fact that I am
gay.
First, I needed to talk to someone. To do
that, I needed a phone number. There was
no way you could get me to even broach the
topic with my father. I proceeded to dial
information. I hung up four times before I
got the gall to ask the lady for any gay help
listings. There was one. If you think it took
a lot to ask an operator for a number, you
can imagine how much it took for me to call
the hotline. The first few times I called,
there were busy signals. Kind of
intimidating for a 14-year-old, but I had to
get this off my chest so I continued. Finally,
after many tries, I got through. And wouldn't
you know it as soon as the voice said, "Gay
Helpline", I put the receiver down. I
couldn't believe I got through and then hung
up. It wasn't the first nor the last, but
definitely a mistake. In between the
operator’s fits of snickering, she did manage
to tell me the helpline’s hours so I knew I
had one more hour to get through.
I took a shower even though I didn't need
one. I just needed to do something. After my
shower I decided to try the helpline again.
Through some divine act, I got through on
the first try. "Well Brian," I asked myself,
"What are you going to do, hang up?" "No,"
I thought, "I can do this." A man answered,
obviously a caring man and said "Atlanta
Gay Helpline, this is Mark." Well, this man
turned out to be everything his voice lead
me to believe.
We talked not only about the pros and
cons of being a teenage homosexual, but
also about current issues and events of the
day. I could talk to him so openly and
honestly that I was sad that a phone
separated us. I think of myself as a younger
more outlandish copy of Mark. He is a twin,
I am a twin. We both enjoy the same music
and dislike the same public figures. I called
him every Tuesday for three weeks when he
mentioned the Youth Group at the Center. I
had known about this group but living in
Lawrenceville makes getting downtown
very difficult
I decided that I had to go to the group. I
needed to know other people in the same
situation I was in. The only thing keeping
me from the group was my father. My
father, a frivolous, overbearing macho bigot
who happens to be one of the most openly
anti-gay persons I know. I knew I would
have to lie to him if I was going to go. This
hurt me deeply inside for I haven't ever
deliberately deceived him in such a way
before. But in my mind at the time, the end
justified the means. So I told Dad that I was
going to a youth group at the Midtown
Presbyterian Church of which there is not
one. This worked and I was able to go.
I was very apprehensive waiting for
Mark to pick me up. But when Mark
arrived, all my fears and worries vanished.
We got along just as well in person as we
did on the phone. We talked as if we had
known each other for years which was
exactly how I felt. When we arrived at the
Center and joined the group it was an eye
opening experience knowing other people
my age were going through the same stuff I
was.
Since then, some heavy stuff has
happened. My father found out and totally
exploded. According to him, I have ruined
the future of having a decent, well-bred
family with his name. I am now serving
time - approximately 30 years in the solitary
confines of my room. He has banned me
from all contact with the group and Mark,
yet he does not know what he is doing to
me. But three nervous breakdowns that I
have suffered through has sent him a
message that we need to talk. Hopefully
when that day comes he will understand me
and accept that which he cannot change. I
will never ask him to understand me for that
is an impossibility. All I ask for is his trust
and acceptance. Until then, I've got my foot
in the door and no matter what happens I
think I'll keep it there.
-Brian
Thank Those Who Make A Difference
Dear Editor
Happy Holidays to you and your staff!
Please accept my heartfelt thanks on behalf
of Sister Sister Productions for your
November profile of the organization and
our recent production of Betty. The concert
was a success, in large part, due to John
Blizzard's enticing description of that nearly
indescribable trio.
I've been taking the last several weeks to
assess the past year and to set business and
personal goals for 1989, and I am
continually thankful for the supportive role
that Southern Voice has played in presenting
information and publicity on behalf of my
business and political activities. As a
community we are extremely blessed to be
the beneficiaries of the hard work you and
your staff have done this year.
The holiday tradition of bestowing gifts
on loved ones should serve as a reminder to
us of the importance those persons play in
our lives during the course of the year. In
addition to my lover, my biological family
and close friends, 1 can't think of anything
more important to me than the organizations
comprising MACGLO, our collective gay
and lesbian media sources and the
organizations working for us nationally, to
create the community that makes me feel so
fortunate and part of something greater in
this life. So this year I will be including
financial gifts to several organizations as a
token of my thanks for their fine
contributions to my personal well-being. I
would like to encourage your readers to take
this to heart and extend their own gifts to
whatever group(s) or person(s) that have
made a difference to them this past year.
And money is not the only gift one need
offer. Contributions of time and talent are
always appreciated, and a simple pledge is
sometimes all that is required to keep the
life in a hard-working organization. The
Southern Voice registry is a good place to
start looking for a place to give.
Please keep up the great work for all of
us and have an extremely prosperous New
Year!!
Sincerely,
Cathy Woolard
Sister Sister Productions
Guest Editorial
Lesbian Alliances: Heterosexism in the 80s
The following is an edited version of a speech by Michelle Parkerson at the Lesbian Alliances panel which was
a part of this year's National Women's Studies Association. For a tape of the full session send $750 to Caryn
McTighe Musil, NWSA, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742.
Challenging Otherness
The theme erf this plenary panel is "Combatting Heterosexism in the '80s." The focus of my address is not an
historical analysis of heterosexism, but the deconstruction erf it. Certainly, more vital statements can be made at the
first ever lesbian plenary in NWSA history, and certainly with such diverse panelists, than discussing how to
sensitize heteroculture to its own biases and repressive violence against the lesbian and gay community. It smacks
of that benign white liberalism (particularly fashionable in the '60s) in which whites asked African Americans to
absolve diem of their own racism and cany the burden of their consciousness-raising.
But the hatred and fear that keep racism alive and well foster the oppression that denies women and men then-
right to love those erf the same sex. The fact that, in 1988, the National Women's Studies Association is holding its
first lesbian plenary indicates the depth at which heterosexism operates, overtly and suhhminally, in all our lives.
Just as homophobia is the psychotic hatred and fear erf lesbians and gay men, heterosexism is the systematic
dominance of life, choice, and cultural expression to enforce the values of heterosexuality. In a sense, homophobia
is to heterosexism what racism is to white supremacy. The psychosis feeds the behavior.
Heterosexism also hinges on a network of other oppressions: patriarchy, racism, and sexism. It permeates all
cultures and social institutions. It infiltrates all our personal interactions and deepest self-concepts. And with the
devastation of AIDS, heterosexism has taken on new bastions of support from those who seek to segregate
themselves from "the gay plague."
Like apartheid, heterosexism confers the illusion of social acceptance upon those who subscribe to it, while at
the other end of that spectrum, it dehumanizes and totally disenfranchises an entire community it deems as
"other." In adhering to or in challenging the caste of
otherness, we deny or design the tods of our own
possibilities as lesbian women.
In refusing to cany dompass (identification), my South
African sisters and brothers defy the regime that enslaves
them in their own homeland. As lesbians, we must refuse
the silence that closets our lives and our loving, if we are
about leadership and power, if we are to forge new
alliances among the community erf women, and if we
want to function as a viable force for social change. We
must not become accomplices in our own oppression by
subscribing to the caste of "otherness."
Sexuality is an intrinsic part erf any liberation struggle
invdving race, class oppression, gender, or economic
# power, but sexuality has consistently been separated from
Michelle Parkerson, NWSA 1988 the thrust of most political movements. Indeed, it has been
seen as a detriment, particularly in Black nationalist
movements since the 1960s.
Black lesbians and gays are viewed as traitors to the cause, a divisive element in the struggle and a threat to the
Black family structure. Ironically, many great African-American political activists, spiritual leaders, and artists
have been/are lesbians and gay men. A conspiracy of silence surrounds our presence in the Black family, the Black
church, and in the Black community at large. Many Black lesbians and gay men lock the doors of their own closets
out of fear of being rejected within their communities, fear of being "other" at home when society has clearly
marked them "other" because of race. Heterosexism in the Black community manifests as deniaL The adage
applies that it's okay as long as we don't talk about it
This reflects the ignorance of keeping sex and sexuality in the closet and off the streets where most political
battles are fought and gather momentum. But the lesbian and gay rights movement is the only revolution being
fought for love. It is the only movement that has taken the issue of how and who we love to the street.
Women's leadership within the lesbian and gay rights movement is vitally important as we begin the third
decade since Stonewall - for the visibility and health of the lesbian community, particulariy lesbians of color, are
the most radical indications of social change. When society's most despised and trivialized citizens experience a
growing power and sense of community, all those in the pecking order of acceptability will experience the residuals
of their empowerment.
Stereotyping is a major factor hindering lesbian alliances and identity. Our internalized self-image as lesbians,
queers, dykes, lovers of women, good girlfriends are more courageous and more destructive than any of those
images caricatured about us in heteroculture. Similarly, the negative images African Americans harbor about
ourselves are more devastating than the nigger stereotypes perpetrated about us by white society.
Lesbians are not a monolithic group; we cannot be assumed to be the same. The butch/femme category is not
the only image of lesbians, nor is a white face. Though butch/femme role playing has historically served a vital
function in the lesbian community, those that center their entire self-definition around strict butch/femme codes
ignore lesbianism as a wholistic experience. They mimic the heterosexist imbalance of power that limits all our
lives..
Another factor that inhibits lesbian alliances is violence - not only the resurgence erf violence against lesbians
and gays fostered by the current climate of heterosexism, but, most horribly, battering within lesbian and gay
unions. As both a perpetrator and victim of domestic violence, I recognize first-hand how it supports and reflects
the psychosis of heterosexism. Battering and other low self-esteem behavior (drag addiction, alcoholism, etc.) as
well as racism must be addressed out loud, in the light of day, among lesbians - not avoided for the sake of
superficially affirming ourselves as a community.
Lesbians are in the leadership of women's alliances for social change because we, too, want a future. And the
risk of leadership is the risk of caning out at home, in academe, in the church, in the workplace. I survive because
lesbians of color embraced that risk before me and still more will follow.
Michelle Parkerson is a writer and independent filmlvideo maker living in Washington, D.C. She is a board
member ofNCBLG (National Coalition of Black Lesbians and Gays).
This article first appeared in Sojourner The Women's Forum -November, 1988 and is reprinted with permission.
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